Monday, December 3, 2012

4 Countries Unveil WJC Camp Rosters

December is World Junior Championship month on The Pipeline Show. As one of our four "Majors" on our seasonal calendar, you can expect a lot of talk focusing on the 2013 WJC.

Today the preliminary and camp rosters of four different countries were named. A quick rundown follows after the jump.

CANADA

Hockey Canada's camp roster can be found HERE. There are six returning players, one currently playing professionally in the AHL and this year there are zero invites from the NCAA.

18 invitees come from the Ontario Hockey League, 11 from the WHL (12 if you include former Red Deer Rebel Ryan Nugent-Hopkins) with the remaining 7 players coming from the QMJHL.

There are four members of the Class of 2013 coming to the camp; Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin of the Halifax Mooseheads, Hunter Shinkaruk from Medicine Hat and Ottawa's Sean Monahan.

Undrafted JC Lipon is the only other player involved without connection to a NHL team.

SWEDEN

Sweden's press release can be found HERE. Injuries to Oscar Klefbom and Jonas Brodin create huge holes on the blueline. Mika Zibanejad will reportedly not play either after scoring the gold medal goal last year, he's playing in the AHL right now. 2012 2nd round draft picks Pontus Aberg (NSH) and Ludwig Bystrom (DAL) have not been invited. Despite the injuries and the uninvited players, Sweden still has 6 returning players. Interesting name on the roster is Quebec Remparts Nick Sorensen. The dual citizen of Denmark and Sweden has the option to play for either country having not played yet in an IIHF sanctioned event. Although he grew up in Denmark, he had been living and playing in Sweden before jumping to the QMJHL. He has played for Sweden in U16 and U17 events. Members of the team that are playing in North America are Sorensen (Quebec), goalie Oscar Dansk (OHL, Erie), defenceman Rasmus Bengtsson (USHL, Muskegon), Hampus Lindholm (AHL, Norfolk), Rickard Rackell (OHL, Plymouth) and Victor Rask (WHL, Calgary).

FINLAND

Finland's press release can be found HERE. A lot of returning players on the Finnish roster including 1st round picks Teuvo Teravainen (CHI), Joel Armia (BUF) and Olli Maatta (PGH).

North American based members of team Finland are goalie Eetu Laurikainen (Swift Current, WHL), Maatta (London, OHL), Mikko Vainonen (Kingston, OHL) and Henri Ikonen (Kingston, OHL).

CZECH REPUBLIC

The press release for the Czech Republic can be found HERE. As always with the Czechs, the names missing from the team are as notable as the ones on the roster. Not included this year are defenceman Richard Nedomlel (Swift Current, WHL) and sniper Matej Stransky (Saskatoon, WHL). A pair of CHL goaltenders did make the cut though in Red Deer Rebels backstop Patrik Bartosak and Brampton's Matej Machovsky. Other members of the team playing in North America include defencemen Marek Hrbas (Kamloops, WHL), David Musil (Edmonton, WHL), Tomas Pavelka (PEI, QMJHL) and Petr Sidlik (Victoriaville, QMJHL). Up front there is Matej Beran (PEI, QMJHL), Radek Faksa (Kitchener, OHL), Martin Frk (Halifax, QMJHL), Tomas Hyka (Gatineau, QMJHL), Dmitri Jaskin (Moncton, QMJHL) and Lukas Sedlak (Chicoutimi, QMJHL).

OTHERS

USA Hockey will announce their camp roster tomorrow.

We're told that Switzerland's WJC roster will look a lot like their bronze medal winning WJAC roster from November. See that HERE.

2 comments:

I know it's technically correct, but it seems almost a stretch to call Olli Maatta a returnee after the way he was bounced from last year's tourney with concussion after about 5 minutes of action. Boone Jenner really nailed him with a high hit, & that was that.

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